posted at 6:01 pm on July 10, 2014 by Noah Rothman

Bloomberg View columnist Francis Wilkinson is apparently thrilled about the worst humanitarian crisis to impact the United States in years. Why? Let’s check his latest column which piqued the interest of MSNBC’s bookers.

Wilkinson was apparently invited on the program to discuss a June 27 dispatch, “Immigration Reform Dead. Obama Is in Trouble.” In that piece, the columnist laments that the current crisis has all but thwarted hopes for reform in the remainder of Obama’s second term, and might even alienate pro-immigration reform activists more than he already has.

But Wilkinson really did not spend that much time talking about his dour column from June 27 because, on July 7, he had an epiphany: this border crisis may not be the disaster for Obama he had originally suspected.

He begins by noting that Obama is in a genuinely tight spot and does not have any perfect options for dealing with the immigration crisis. Republicans, Wilkinson writes, cannot be appeased.

“Any executive action of that breadth would produce high-pitched wails from nativists along with calls for impeachment from those Republicans too decorous to demand that Obama be drawn and quartered,” he submits. How kind.

He also concedes that Republicans do have some electoral momentum which could propel them to a Senate majority in the fall. This is a prospect that Democrats might welcome, he writes, as a Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) would have difficulty corralling a majority out of “a base split between a faction hunkering down in the 1980s and one fleeing for the 1890s.”

This is a slick observation for one presumably supportive of the party that backs 20th Century models of unionized labor, is bitterly opposed to the private sector technological advances that have made the U.S. the largest oil and natural gas producer on earth in just four years, and remains resentful of modern automated wonders like ATMs. But I digress…

Wilkinson goes on to suggest that this immigration crisis is a blessing in disguise for Democrats as it puts immigration reform on the front burner and might energize the Democratic base. Maybe, though it is just as likely that this issue will fail to energize Obama voters just as have efforts to elevate issues like the environment, the Koch brothers, Hobby Lobby, racism, and the invidious horrors of the First Amendment.

Appearing on MSNBC to discuss his thesis, Wilkinson went a step further than he did in his column. In this segment, he suggested that Obama “wants” the present crisis, and he wants it to be a “big” one.

“I think he wants this to be a big problem,” Wilkinson told the hosts of MSNBC’s The Cycle on Thursday. “I think he wants this to be such big problem right now that Congress has to deal with it, and that the media’s focused on it, and that the American public is focused on it.”

The Bloomberg View columnist added that the GOP’s “nativist” streak is stronger than their hatred for the president, so they will cave to an immigration reform proposal if it is sufficiently focused on border protection.

“I think he wanted a big splash. I think he wanted a big story,” Wilkinson continued. “And I think he needs a big story and a big splash in order to force a resolution of the border.”

Too clever by half. Wilkinson conceded in this segment that the crisis prompted by the influx of unaccompanied migrant children must be resolved before any reform proposal can be addressed, and a resolution to this crisis does not appear to be in the offing in the near future. Every day, the president’s political position grows more tenuous, the members of his party grow bolder and more cutting in their criticisms of his inaction, and the outlines of a post-Obama Democratic Party grow clearer.

None of these are particularly good outcomes for the president or his party. Sometimes a disaster is really just a disaster. Wilkinson probably should have stuck to the thoughts he penned his June column.

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None of these are particularly good outcomes for the president or his party. Sometimes a disaster is really just a disaster. Wilkinson probably should have stuck to the thoughts he penned his June column.

Yes. The whole thing has been orchestrated by Obama, in an effort to dilute this country, to gain a permanent Dem majority, and push amnesty actually. We can only hope that this backfires in a major way against the Transformer in Chief. And that R amnesty pushers like Boehner get booted out on their rear.

This is a slick observation for one presumably supportive of the party that backs 20th Century models of unionized labor, is bitterly opposed to the private sector technological advances that have made the U.S. the largest oil and natural gas producer on earth in just four years, and remains resentful of modern automated wonders like ATMs. But I digress…

Wilkinson goes on to suggest that this immigration crisis is a blessing in disguise for Democrats as it puts immigration reform on the front burner and might energize the Democratic base.

LOL. Yes, blacks and working-class white Dims are just thrilled to see hundreds of thousands of poor, unskilled illegal aliens flooding across our borders and soon to be competing with them for jobs, welfare benefits, etc.

This Obama-coordinated invasion is probably going to energize the Dim base alright, just not in the way that this clueless douche expects.

And we have to start working now to make sure that next year we are not faced with that amnesty pusher again being the leader of the GOP. We need to plan and unify around somebody and get Boehner out. Period.

Locals and Democrat politicians have foiled resettlement plans for illegal immigrants in New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Illinois. Some Democrat politicians and union leaders want to encourage the influx, but the prospect of funding it isn’t all that appealing to blue collar Dems, rank and file union members, blacks, and the citizens from non-urban areas of blue states. Do you really think an unemployed former auto or steel worker supports handouts to illegals?

Further, the crisis is pushing the problems into public awareness and the images of people crowded onto the roofs of Mexican trains juxtapose nicely with those of Obama drinking beer an playing pool.

Have you noticed the thousands of shares (sometimes more than 10,000) on Breitbart immigration articles? How many people support the illegal immigrants in the comments sections of even Politico or CNN articles?

Since Noah came onboard, MSNBC has gotten more attention, by a factor of at least 100, on HA than it ever gets from those viewing it’s drivel on cable.
If I wanted to hear / see the drivelling idiotarians who regularly appear on MSNBC, I would be one of the dozen people who regularly watch MSNBC.
Athos on July 10, 2014 at 6:10 PM

Pro-amnesty liberal Noah Rothman, who wrote an article lecturing Republicans about the need to appear compassionate towards illegal aliens, has never apparently written columns about the victims of illegal immigration. Where is liberal Rothman’s compassion for those Americans having difficulty finding work, in part due to illegal immigration? When has pro-amnesty Noah Rothman written articles detailing the increased crime related to the illegal alien invasion? Where is his compassion for these victims: http://www.fairus.org/issue/examples-of-serious-crimes-of-illegal-aliens

Wow, this is stomach turning to read. Not a word about what is best for the country. Not a word about how this is a national security crisis, not just a “humanitarian” one. Not a word about what this really is….. an invasion by ILLEGALS.

It’s all about how Obama and the Dim party are going to make out. So Dims should cheer that this crisis is happening, because it will benefit Obama and the party in the long run.

When will minorities wake up to the fact that liberals view them in terms of number of votes and nothing else? This shows the craven depths to which liberals will sink to maintain power. One thing minorities need to understand: when the liberals get you on the Progressive Plantation you are not allowed to leave. Ever.

Wilkinson goes on to suggest that this immigration crisis is a blessing in disguise for Democrats as it puts immigration reform on the front burner and might energize the Democratic base.

Well, did the Marielito boatlift from Cuba help Jimmy Carter because it showed how heartless the GOP was? Did it prompt the GOP to relax immigration across the board or demand citizenship for the Marielitos? NO!, it did not. What it did do is show that Carter would not act to stop a defacto invasion of the US by people of mixed to say the least character. The crime wave in the US that followed the boatlift could not be missed by even Dem leaning independents. How many Reagan Democrats were influenced by this invasion is tough to measure but it surely did not reduce Reagan’s appeal.

An upsurge in TB, measles etc. or organized crime activity as a result of turning these “children” loose will not be missed now either. Stagnant wages will have an new easy explanation besides “income inequality” in many minds among the crowd that was heavily supporting the Dems. The media may try to spin this the Dems way but blowing up and floating a lead balloon is hard work.

This is a slick observation for one presumably supportive of the party that backs 20th Century models of unionized labor, is bitterly opposed to the private sector technological advances that have made the U.S. the largest oil and natural gas producer on earth in just four years, and remains resentful of modern automated wonders like ATMs. But I digress…

And Gutless Boehner isn’t mentioning the Unconstitutional DACA program in his lawsuit, despite the fact that Barack and Jeh have admitted it is illegal…

Jeh Johnson conceded that DACA is illegal, stating on June 24, 2014 in testimony to Congress: “The last time I looked an executive order can’t supercede the law.”

Even Obama admitted DACA is illegal: “There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system, that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president.”

None of these are particularly good outcomes for the president or his party. Sometimes a disaster is really just a disaster. Wilkinson probably should have stuck to the thoughts he penned his June column.

Wrong. Suggesting that this crisis has not been triggered by Barry because it doesn’t look likely to deliver exactly the results that he wants is naive. You get to pick from a limited menu of crises, -you don’t get to design the crisis in fine detail. We also have to consider the basic incompetence of Barry and company. They saw an opportunity to create a crisis sort of related to their goal of “comprehensive immigration reform” and they jumped on it.

Another example, -Fast and Furious. We rightly ask, how exactly did Barry (and Holder) expect F&F to advance new gun legislation? I don’t think they exactly knew there either. They just needed a crisis that was related enough to their objectives to sell it to their LIV base.

In the end, they may be right. How many times do we see crises in our nation that result in totally outrageous legislation that in the end does nothing or would have done nothing to avert the crisis in the first place? McCain-Feingold? Dodd-Frank? Assorted Assault-Weapons bans?

“On Monday, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto and Guatemalan president Otto Perez Molina held a joint press conference in Playas de Catazaja, Mexico, to officially announce an agreement to make it easier for those making the illegal journey to the United States from Central America, to cross into Mexico.

The Southern Border Program to Improve Passage, will provide for more border checkpoints along Mexico’s border with Guatemala, and offer more protection and even emergency medical care to those making their way north. The illegal aliens will receive a so-called Regional Visitor’s Card, according to El Universal.

Officially, the program will grant the cards to only illegal aliens from Guatemala and Belize, allowing them to remain in Mexico’s southern states for 72 hours (more than enough time to reach the U.S./Mexican border by train). While, those two countries share a border with Mexico, the program will undoubtedly benefit anyone who makes it to the border, which would explain why our Border Patrol stations are currently overflowing with illegal aliens from El Salvador and Honduras as well.

The program will also give special protection and even financial assistance to unaccompanied minors now pouring across our border. Of course, these efforts, chiefly by the Mexican government, will only increase the number of illegal aliens coming to this country by the thousands, now on a daily basis.

The official announcement only confirms what many of us have known all along…the current chaos on the border which the Obama administration has sympathetically (and dishonestly) characterized as a “humanitarian crisis,” only exists due to collusion between the governments of Mexico, Guatemala and likely the United States….”

Since Noah came onboard, MSNBC has gotten more attention, by a factor of at least 100, on HA than it ever gets from those viewing it’s drivel on cable.

If I wanted to hear / see the drivelling idiotarians who regularly appear on MSNBC, I would be one of the dozen people who regularly watch MSNBC.

Athos on July 10, 2014 at 6:10 PM

This is a good point, and think it’s worth addressing. For what it’s worth, monitoring left-wing outlets (MSNBC, NYT editorial page, TPM, WaPo, etc.) became something of a niche of mine while I was over at Mediaite, and I still think it is valuable.

For what it is worth, I studied the Soviet Union, its political ethos, and its enablers in the West while in college & grad school because, as they say, better to know thine enemy. The goal is to be able to articulate the arguments of someone who holds a position you do not in terms indistinguishable from one who does. From that place, it is easier to change hearts and minds because your ideological opponent does not feel that you are misrepresenting their position.

Another way to look at it, I already know what I think, while I may be wrong, conservative readers of a conservative site probably watch a bit more Fox than MSNBC or CNN. So, that’s what I monitor and I try to call out the more egregious episodes on both networks, be they newsworthy, cringe-worthy, or merely interesting.

I don’t know if that is what the audience at HA is necessarily looking for, but it is something that I find valuable to the discourse and the general knowledge base; what the state of debate is across the political spectrum.

FWIW. Figured it was worth articulating my philosophical approach to political commentary. I hope that makes sense. If not, or if you think I’m barking up the wrong tree, let me know.

There is no question the immigration laws need fixing, but as the House wants, not until the border is closed. The lib’s failed to fix the border in the 1980′s a lesson learned.

Fix It Before You Overhaul It
These days, Republicans are also calling for existing laws to be toughened up, which Reagan would have agreed with, Robinson says. In fact, Robinson says, he would have been so upset at the federal government’s failure to make good on the 1986 reform that he would have demanded for that law to be fixed first before instituting a new overhaul.

“He, too, would have been right there in saying, ‘Fix the borders first.’ ” Where he would have differed, Robinson says, is his welcoming attitude toward immigrants.

First off, Obama’s default position is always to make a speech, spend some money and move on. Actually doing something never crosses his mind. So the bigger the crisis, the more important his speeches become. What’s not to like?

I don’t know if that is what the audience at HA is necessarily looking for

Noah Rothman on July 10, 2014 at 7:12 PM

True.

Your hire is like when Journolister David Weigel was hired at Wapo. Wrong fit.

I’m not interested in MSNBC at all. Maybe once in a while to laugh at would be fine. You are pro-abortion, pro-amnesty, and pro-who know what other liberal position that hasn’t revealed yet. So conservatives are wary about you to start out with. Even though you have a degree in Soviet Union you quibbled with Reagan on Cold War tactics:

Those same arguments would be made by the Soviets and their Western allies when the Reagan administration began toying with the unworkable notion of space-based anti-missile lasers.

and conservatives tend to be skeptical of those fresh out of college who think they know it all.
Then you were clueless as to what Jeff Flake has done from 2012-2014:

Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), one of the more conservative members of the House when he served and a Republican who maintains a lifetime American Conservative Union rating of 97 percent as of 2011,

“I think he wanted a big splash. I think he wanted a big story,” Wilkinson continued. “And I think he needs a big story and a big splash in order to force a resolution of the border.”

this is what i’ve thought all along. On one of the blogs i go to they have a clip of Kyle saying that barry has told him that he won’t budge on the border first, because if he did the RINO party would stab him in the back and not vote for Amnesty…this was 4 years ago.

barry’s not budging. He’ll force the game by putting more and more pressure on the RINOs…he knows, and we know, that the RINOs will crack…they want an excuse to crack wide open.

so the correlation of forces is something like this…the Techies and other businesses want a few 100K H1b visas…they want a more high tech workers. The left wants the vision of Ruy Teixeira…which is basically a 1 party state…and they’ll need millions of immigrants

the business world is happy with the trade of (cf. California)

the only pesky obstacle is conservatives…they have to be marginalized. Crisis time

This is just so frustrating when absolutely no one in the government is doing what needs to be done to stop our immigration laws from being violated, from our sovereignty from being violated. And we give these countries money. Congress needs to stop foreign aid to these countries. Obama is letting these people feed off of us. He is redistributing the wealth of the United States and its people to Central America. Its disgusting. He should be impeached.

actually I’ve heard Coulter say she never watches Fox…just watches MSNBC and CNN. This make perfect sense to me…she wants to have a fresh take…not something that she overheard someone else say at FNC.

Actually it is imperative to listen to what the left wants. One RINO problem is that they don’t take the one-party rule seriously…they presume that the common sense of the ‘people’ will balance out the barking leftists. That used to be true.

but read the latest Klotin article on CA…via neo-neocon. That is the Vision

For what it is worth, I studied the Soviet Union, its political ethos, and its enablers in the West while in college & grad school because, as they say, better to know thine enemy. The goal is to be able to articulate the arguments of someone who holds a position you do not in terms indistinguishable from one who does.

You’ll find no argument or disagreement from me regarding this approach. I consider it fundamental towards the application of critical thinking and articulating a cogent and valid argument.

From that place, it is easier to change hearts and minds because your ideological opponent does not feel that you are misrepresenting their position.

In an ideal world, yes. The challenge is that far too often one’s ideological opponent is also an ideologue who is more focused on seeing only what they believe as opposed to believing what they see.

Another way to look at it, I already know what I think, while I may be wrong, conservative readers of a conservative site probably watch a bit more Fox than MSNBC or CNN. So, that’s what I monitor and I try to call out the more egregious episodes on both networks, be they newsworthy, cringe-worthy, or merely interesting.

I don’t know if that is what the audience at HA is necessarily looking for, but it is something that I find valuable to the discourse and the general knowledge base; what the state of debate is across the political spectrum.

A few observations here. First, with many of the regular commentators here at HA, they do have the interest to understand and view the state of debate across the political spectrum. It’s apparent in their well developed, cogent, and valid arguments / posts, often with supporting materials. They also apply critical thinking to their arguments – willing to acknowledge a good point, avoiding fallacies, and not seeking to move the goalposts.

This contrasts to the ‘others’, aka trolls, who when faced with a cogent and valid argument frequently move the goalposts, embrace fallacies, or even just quietly disappear rather than continuing to ‘justify’ an intellectually or morally or ethically tenuous position.

Secondly, in terms of MSNBC, CNN, or even many of the progressive print outlets, there is a real constant around these media elements – their ratings / subscriptions are falling precipitously. That’s because the ‘buying’ public has decided that what they are being sold isn’t worth the price. I’m sure many of us read / check Newsbusters.com or other similar sites on a daily basis to see highlights of the latest bias, vapidity, and otherwise bad product coming from the media, but there’s a fine line between highlighting their bias and giving them far more attention than they deserve. There’s a reason why ‘GAZE’ is often a valid response to an obvious troll.

I think to a large extent, the content within the comments of HA is a good eye on the state of the debate within the political spectrum. While there is a numbers advantage of center/ center-right / right commentators over those of the left, on threads that stimulate debate we’ll get cogent and valid arguments, good laughs, groans, and fallacious arguments.

It just seems that some of the posts are trying to ‘force it’ or ‘tee it up’ as opposed to stimulating critical thinking and real debate.

Ultimately, it’s probably as much a learning and evolving process for you, Noah, as it is for us.

In blog terminology, to glare with silent disapproval at a troll who has intentionally attempted to derail a topic.

A sign of non-acknowledgment of a particularly offensive or inflammatory post, and a sign to other commenters not to “feed the troll” (pay attention to a disruptive commenter). Usually written all capitals.

I’m an old-time commentator on a few blogs…primarily at LGF between 2003-2009 – and this was one of the standard responses when trolls were particularly trolling or disruptive. I thought it was a pretty common term in the blogosphere.

“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” ~ Rahm Emanuel

“We have to use the crisis — that some view as a crisis, and it does have crisis qualities — as an opportunity to show who we are as Americans,” ~ Nancy Pelosi July 2014 (illegal unaccompanied child illegals)

Jeh Johnson conceded that DACA is illegal, stating on June 24, 2014 in testimony to Congress: “The last time I looked an executive order can’t supercede the law.”

Even Obama admitted DACA is illegal: “There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system, that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president.”

azpatriotsdotcom on July 10, 2014 at 6:45 PM

In NYC there are ads promoting DACA on the subway. They promise benefits to illegals and their families regardless of their immigration status. The city is troubled by the low enrollment numbers and believes it is either a misconception that the Dreamer must be enrolled in college or the $465 cost to register, and renewal for the original bunch from 2012 is imminent. So, they are billing it as a work program: Get a good job with benefits that extend to your whole family.